Orthodox Jewish rules are stopping many women getting pregnant.
In Israel, there have been calls for the rules around menstrual impurity to be reconsidered after a leading gynaecologist from an Orthodox Jewish background, blamed the restrictions for the high number of women coming to him because they can’t get pregnant.
Observant Jews are governed by religious injunctions known as the ‘Halakha’. And the rules of Niddah – a specified time counted from the first day of bleeding, and during which couples are not allowed sexual relations, are considered among the most important. Once it was 7 days, but now a two week abstinence from sex is more commonly demanded by Orthodox rabbis. For most women this takes them past the time when they are most fertile as Lipika Pelham from Jerusalem has been finding out.
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